


ITCC

by seekingferret



Category: City & the City - China Mieville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In most cases, cities that grow into each other's space in this way lose their individual identities, and whatever border or barrier still separates them becomes irrelevant as they fuse into one new city."</p><p>~Wikipedia</p>
            </blockquote>





	ITCC

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Firerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firerose/gifts).



The seats on Tyador Borlú's Lufthansa flight were unsettlingly comfortable, even in coach. He could have chipped in a few euros of his own to upgrade the seats purchased by the Department for him to first class, but just the idea of flying Lufthansa was enough of an upgrade for Borlú to feel like he was living a life of extravagant luxury. When he landed at Berlin Tegelhof, the plane docked with an aerobridge and for the first time in memory Borlú debarked from the plane without having to descend to the tarmac and take a long, windy walk to the terminal. 

Customs was still a bureaucratic nightmare, and Borlú started to regain his land legs as he dickered with customs inspectors who seemed certain that packed in his luggage, alongside the three identical uniforms, the six pairs of mismatched socks, and the slightly over-estimated supply of underwear for a two day visit, were drugs, explosives, stolen women, and possibly the long lost clue that would reveal the location of the Holy Grail. He greeted these brothers-in-arms with a scowl, a short shouting match, and an iron-willed refusal to give them any consideration as human beings. They would respond in kind, he knew.

Eventually, they became satisfied that he was at least a sufficiently clever human trafficker to thwart their carefully performed rituals and he was allowed to pass through into West Berlin. Nobody was waiting for him, and after a phone call from the only Telefonzelle in the terminal to confirm that this was because of a mixup, Borlú exited the terminal into the open air to hail a cab. 

It was his first time outside Beszel since his last trip to Ul Qoma. With his first breath of unfiltered air Borlú smelled a dozen unfamiliar scents. The sewage smelled different here, he noticed, and this thought began to dominate his thoughts as he waited for the cab drivers to finally notice his outstretched arm. He obsessed over the smell, trying to somehow isolate its components in his mind. Was the difference the result of different chemicals used in the treatment, or differences in the waste that Berliners deposited in their sewers? Perhaps it was atmospheric. Berlin was at a lower altitude than Beszel, and had a correspondingly higher barometric pressure. Could that explain the difference in smells?

At last he reached his hotel room, but before he could begin to unpack his clothing the hotel phone rang. Borlú grimaced. He reached for it on the fourth ring. 

It was Fritz Wellhausen of the ITCC, apologizing for the confusion with his arrival. Wellhausen invited him to an opening night gathering on top of the Brandenburg Gate. Borlú accepted the invitation with as much shortness and distemper as possible. Then he hung up, before he could get drawn into any further conversation. He would apologize later. For now, Borlú needed to sleep. He unloaded his clothing into the bureau in careful, unwrinkled stacks. Then he undressed and entered into an immediate state of soporific stupor on the cigarette-scented bed of the hotel room. 

 

At the party, St. Paul and Pest were in a corner getting drunk and cozy together, while East Jerusalem was getting loud and drunk on his own. "Finally I'm here with people who understand!" he shouted, his turban dissheveled and falling down around his neck, while everyone tried to ignore him. 

Borlú and his whiskey on the rocks tried to stay safely to one side, not attracting attention, but that didn't stop pretty Kansas City, Kansas from approaching him. 

"So you're Beszel," she said with sultry vibrato in her voice. He shook his head. "That must be such a trip," she added. She had a rich, creamy American accent, full of broad, extended vowel runs and diphthongs. "Having Ul Qoma right there and pretending not to see it. That'd really fuck with my head." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I have a couple ecstasy pills in my purse, if you want to try one. I think we could have fun together." Borlú did not. He extricated himself from the situation as quickly as was politic and headed over to a cluster with Former East Berlin, Former West Berlin, Brooklyn, Frýdek, and either East Beirut or West Beirut. Former West Berlin was his old friend Fritz, the organizer of the conference. Entering the cluster, he gave Fritz a nod of taciturn acknowledgment. 

"Ah, Tyador!" he proclaimed with good cheer. He was the only person at the conference who actually called people by the names printed on their nametags instead of by the cities printed below their names, which Borlú found vaguely charming in Fritz and would have found unendurably annoying in anyone else. Borlú had tolerated a lot from Fritz since they'd met at the conference on Policing Split Cities all those years ago. "Welcome to Berlin. I'm so glad you could make it. We were just talking about DuBois's theory of Double Consciousness and its socioeconomic implications on life in the 21st century."

Former East Berlin stifled a laugh. "Don't listen to him," she said. She was a handsome pale-skinned woman of about forty-five, whom Borlú had never met before. "Nothing he says is ever serious. We were talking about the best place to find weissbier in Berlin. Sadly the old Schultheiss brewery on my side was closed down several years ago. The Western version is not quite the same."

"I find there is a lot that is no longer the same when you leave home," Borlú lamented. 

"Europe is very different than America," Brooklyn added. He seemed to be struggling to keep up with the conversation a little bit, so Borlú took pity on him and decided to help him out.

"Even Europe is very different than Europe," he put in. "I've only travelled, what, a few hundred kilometers?"

"Seven hundred," Fritz said authoritatively..

"No, it's only two hundred," insisted Frýdek.

"Seven hundred, two hundred, five thousand, it doesn't matter. It's much less than the trip to America, we are all agreed?" Everyone accepted this. "Despite this, I feel like I am on another planet. Being able to see how East and West Berlin are healing their breach is fascinating."

"So how does it work? Cross-hatching, I mean." Borlú made a face as Kansas City, Kansas crept up behind him, caressed his arm with her hand, and forced her way into the conversation. "From the time I was a kid my parents made it clear that the people across the Missouri were different from us. They didn't have to say anything specific. It was the way they said it, you know? Was it like that? Nothing spoken, just constant encouragement to ignore parts of your city?"

"Ul Qoma is not any part of Beszel," Borlú said, scowling at her. 

"Excuse my friend Tyador," Fritz interjected, ever the peace maker. "He has to try to answer the question all the time. And I'm not sure there is a good answer. I spent two weeks in Beszel once, visiting Tyador, and I didn't even come close to getting the hang of unseeing the way they do. You have to learn how to do it when you're young, or you'll never learn. Like a language."

Former East Berlin tried anyway. "It's more than just unspoken modeling by adults, at least. There is an official government program to teach children how to look at the city. Right, Tyador?"

He nodded. The government program was responsible for more deprogrammed children than programmed children, but Tyador didn't see any reason to point this out. It was hard to explain. Most people in Beszel learned to unsee in spite of the government, not because of it. There were some samizdats Borlú had seen during his university years that suggested that the government was trying to sabotage the development process. Borlú didn't think the government was organized enough to carry out a plan like that. 

"It's a mixture of all the latest psychoanalytic methods. Aversion theory. Behavioral therapy. Neo-Post-Freudianism. Children have it drilled into them that some things are part of the city, and other things shouldn't be seen. They see it as necessary to maintain the structure of society, you see."

Kansas City, Kansas furrowed her brow. "But what did they do before Neo-Post-Freudianism? They've been doing this cross-hatching thing for centuries, right?" 

For the first time, Borlú smiled at her. She was asking the right questions, the ones most people didn't ever seem to get around to. Former East Berlin looked flummoxed, but only for a moment. "Oh, I imagine they used Post-Freudianism," she said, finally. Fritz and Borlú both couldn't resist a snigger. 

Picking up on it, Kansas City pressed on, giving Borlú a sly wink. "And before Post-Freudianism?"

At last, back to the wall, Former East Berlin was stumped. "I don't know. I guess I should defer to Beszel on this one. What does the government do to ingrain the habit of unseeing in children?"

Borlú cleared his throat and pretended he was thinking about his answer. He let ten seconds pass, counting the seconds off in his head, smiling at Fritz. "You know what I think I need? Another round. Can I get one for anybody else?"

"I'll have a vodka Martini," Kansas City began. Fritz asked for a weissbier. West Beirut - Borlú seized the opportunity to clear up his uncertainty- asked for a coke. Brooklyn asked for a pilsner. Frýdek wanted his vodka straight, and ice cold. Finally, it got back around to Former East Berlin, who reluctantly asked for a weissbier. 

Borlú was gone at the bar for a few minutes, and when he returned the conversation had turned to the different bridges between Brooklyn and Manhattan. West Beirut, it turned out, was a civil engineer and bridge connoisseur. Borlú was happy to let him lead the conversation for a few minutes. He considered asking Kansas City, Kansas if he could try that pill now. It might not be the worst idea. Berlin was a whole other city, these days. 

At a table on the other side of the room, Jerusalem, Lo Wu, and Asian Istanbul were playing a dice game Borlú had never seen before. Ciudad Juarez, San Francisco, and a Lithuanian city he'd never heard of were arguing something that, based on the occasional outbursts loud enough for him to hear, had something to do with the Internet and the United Nations. And possibly unicorns. 

"Yes, well, intellectually I know that Mühlendammbrücke is yours as much as mine now. But it still feels like mine," Former East Berlin told Fritz, and Borlú realized that the topic had shifted to the bridges of Berlin. He had spaced out and missed a whole conversation about the Bridge of Spies. "You didn't grow up driving across it in the back seat of your father's car on shopping days."

"One doesn't fully imprint on a place as a child, though," Fritz argued. "I'm continually forming attachments to new places and people, even now. Yes, East Berlin only became part of my beloved city in 1989, granted. but I've had decades to adopt it, and to let it adopt me. There's a whole generation grown up now that never lived in the divided city. They only know Berlin."

"That's not true," Former East Berlin countered. "They take cues from their elders. They know where the invisible lines are that we hesitate to cross. They see the way we stare at the Brandenburg Gate. They walk past the buildings the Stasi once ruled from and see how we flinch. You can't heal five decades of pain and division in one lifetime." 

"You don't need to heal the pain," Frýdek said. His voice was gruff and his German was overlaid with awkward Czech grammatical structures. 

"What do you mean?" Fritz asked. 

"I mean you can't heal the pain. It's there because we humans can't live together without forming divisions and walls. Some part of our psyche wants to have rivalries and jealousies and enemies. You can't heal it. You just need to learn how to live with it."

"Sometimes we can build bridges," Borlú suggested, offering another entry into the conversation for Brooklyn and West Beirut. "Sometimes we can come together and hold an International Twin Cities Conference and try to set aside all of that."

The conversation moved on, but Borlú was a little removed from it. After a few minutes, he decided that he would finish his whiskey, then have another one. Then he would take Kansas City, Kansas back to his hotel room.


End file.
